Frog Hunting
by Alice Rider
Summary: Dave and Jade go frog hunting in the Land of Frost and Frogs. What could possibly go wrong? K just for my paranoia


"Hey, look Dave! There's another one!"

Strider smirked, one had in his pocket, watching behind his shades as Harley dug around a snow painted bush. She emerged victorious, a half-frozen ball of slime looking at him with the stare of eternal boredom from her hands.

"What should we name him?" Her eyes narrowed in deep concentration, studying the little frog. Gears clinked, meshed, and whirred in her eyes—a more beautiful representation of the Land of Heat and Clockwork. Holy Jesus, Harley was such a nerd.

"Name him Egderp. We don't have one of those yet." Nerdy or not, Dave couldn't help but play along. As long as she smiled for him, he couldn't find a flying fuck to give about how uncool it was.

"I'm not going to name him Egderp, Dave. That's just rude." God, that pout "I'm-in-charge-here" face she gave him was too freaking cute. "We have a John already."

"Then it's a good thing Egderp isn't John."

"Eg_bert._ We're naming him Eg_bert_. I'll have none of this name-calling business. I get enough of that from Karkat." She adjusted her glasses on her nose and crossed her arms. It was a good thing Bro wasn't around, being the flash-stepping ninja that he was, because Dave was forced to bite his lip to keep from smiling—Harley had this way of making his poker face just melt right off and he didn't understand how or why; but then again, he had gotten into breaking the coolkid rules lately; just as long as that smile was for him, the coolkid rules didn't apply.

"Fine, fine. Throw him in the pail with the others and let's go." He brushed off the powder that had dusted his clothes and hair, careful not to get any on his shades—he wasn't ready to break that rule just yet.

"Aw, is my coolkid cold?" She reached up to ruffle some more snow out of his hair, giggling something or the other about "coolkid hair."

"Coolkids don't get cold. Especially not Striders. Striders fucking _invented_ chill. This snow is just jealous of how cool I am." That "my" couldn't slip by him. Nope. He caught it with his mad skills red-handed trying to get by him. That "my" never had a fighting chance against such a sharp-witted coolkid like him.

She snorted a chuckle, crinkling up her nose in some gog-awful adorable kind of way, placing Egd—Egbert in the pail nonchalantly hanging from one of his fingers. Free of the frog, her hands started to slowly slide around the crook of his elbow, cautious green glancing up at him every few seconds to make sure his perfect poker face wouldn't slip and he'd pull away as she pulled herself tightly against his arm.

"You know, you could have just told me that you were cold," she mumbled into his sleeve.

He tossed another coolkid rule out the window and let his head lean on her messy hair. "I told you. Striders don't get cold."

"You're freezing, Dave. You should have said something sooner. I could have made you a jacket!" Emerald flashed up to him behind snow chilled glass, laughter resonating deep inside.

"That jacket is not happening. It is the uncoolest thing I've ever seen." He wasn't even sure how she wasn't solid ice by now, that little red monstrosity hardly offered any kind of resistance to the cold, and blue dresses and tights weren't exactly known for their thermal capabilities.

"I'm going to make you one and you will wear it and like it, coolkid." She couldn't smile and be wicked at the same time, her teeth and her laugh wouldn't let her.

A frog, sick of waiting out in the cold and frost, croaked loudly in the pail—where on earth had she found a bucket with a heart painted on it?—Jade jumped back a bit, blinking at the green faces staring back up at her expectantly.

"Whoops. I almost forgot we were frog hunting." She patted a certain golden skinned amphibian with pinkish eyes, one declared to be Rose only a few hours ago, with an apologetic smile. He would _die_ for that smile.

It almost saddened him to think that he would be leaving her soon by way of a few hundred bullets to the back. It was inevitable though. Jack was coming. Hell, he was probably already here, watching them from behind the wind and snow and trees like the creepy stalker he was. But coolkids don't get sad about things that couldn't be avoided because coolkids don't let that kind of stuff get to them.

The Knight of Time, with all of his hopping and screwing around the timelines in stable loops, know the value and weight of a single moment. It was the gap of time between the seconds that counted, the difference between continuing to see another jade-colored message and a pile of dead Daves.

And this moment, with Harley clinging to his arm as they stomped through the falling snow back to her house, a bucket with his feelings for her etched into the side in plain sight swinging between them, and a horrendously uncool jacket being promised to him, was officially his favorite.

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**Yes! So, now that I have your attention! Thanks for reading, hope you liked it. Now, if you could just hit that little review button right down there and write something-anything at all- about my work, I would appreciate it very much!**


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